Sins of the Mother
by leev
Summary: Sequel to InHuman Touch! Maggie Foley plots against her son who is still recovering from the latest attack by Brainiac. Slash (VR). Rating for future chapters.


Welcome to the sequel to _InHuman Touch_. I appreciate everyone's support and patience, and I promise to work hard to make this fic as interesting as I hope _IT_ was. There are one or two surprises in store. (Like you guys couldn't guess how much I love cliffhangers!)

Shameless plug coming!

I am currently balancing three open fics (SOTM, A Camping We Will Go, and Brainiac's Whore). I would appreciate feedback on any or all of them. While I have already set the basic plots and endings in my head, your constructive comments and suggestions will make these stories better.

Warnings for this chapter - Maggie is a bee-atch, and there is some mention of child abuse.

Disclaimer - Caz is the only one who is mine - sort of (shares a smirk with Eyes). Pretty much everyone else belong to people who obviously don't know that Virgil and Richie are meant to be together.

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He was the most handsome, exciting man she had ever met. He had stolen her breath away before he even said hello. His black hair and dark, mysterious eyes; his brooding "bad boy" mystique that appealed to the rebelliousness within her; his money. Bruce Wayne was every girl's dream, and he had chosen her. Margarethe Rooiakker, second generation Scandinavian-American, had caught his eye, if only for a few days. _

_Maggie could remember their time together with perfect clarity though she would be hard-pressed to say what grades Richie had made on his last report card. That was all right. She prided herself on remembering the important things in life._

_When he asked her name, she felt uncertain. When he asked her to dinner after the lecture, she felt smug - all her friends had wanted him. When he asked her to bed, she felt she had found her Prince Charming._

_And then he was gone._

_She couldn't understand what had happened. He had ordered room service while she showered. Over eggs, he had thanked her for a pleasant weekend and wished her the best. WISHED HER THE BEST! He left when his meal was finished. She never saw him again. _

_Except in her dreams and in the face of the child who was born nine months later._

_She had been so torn when she first discovered her pregnancy. If her family found out they would disown her. She wasn't ready to give up her comfortable lifestyle. She wouldn't call Bruce. If he knew that she was carrying his child, he would come back. He might marry her to give the child legitimacy. Then again, he might not. He might just take the child and leave her in the sewer._

_No. Bruce could never know about the baby. That way when he finally did come back to her, and he would, she would know it was because he truly loved her. In the meantime, she would have to find some sucker to lay the blame on when she started to show. Someone who would be easy prey to her big blue eyes and flame-red hair. Someone like Sean Foley._

_Too bad for her, Sean had suffered from some form of cancer as a child and his treatment had rendered him sterile. He knew the baby wasn't his, but he agreed to raise the child as his own._

Now, Sean was in another room doing his damnedest to make her look bad while she sat here waiting for her sleazy lawyer. She had known attorney Carl "_Caz_" Simon for years. He had kept more than one would-be tattletale from blabbing her business.

The first time she had required Caz's 'special' assistance was when Richie was six. She and Sean were preparing for a night out on the town. Richie wasn't old enough to be trusted to stay home alone without messing up the house, so they had hired a neighborhood girl, Brenda Lake, to baby-sit.

Maggie was in the bathroom when Richie came in. He sat quietly on the edge of the toilet and watched her drying her hair. She had stepped out for a few minutes to search for her favorite lipstick. When she came back in, Richie was using the dryer to make sand dunes out of her talcum powder. He was startled by her reappearance and his little hands dropped the appliance, which shifted just enough to blow powder all over her black velvet dress.

She had every right to be angry. The little monster had ruined her dress, destroyed her private bathroom, and was going to make them late for their dinner reservations. She couldn't understand why the Lake family was so shocked that she had punished the boy.

She hired Caz from the yellow pages when they threatened to call the police for burning Richie with the hair dryer. Caz arranged for Brenda the Big Mouth to receive a very generous scholarship so that she could go to college out of state. He also arranged for the self-same big mouth to have a little "accident" once she was settled into her new school. Saved Maggie a hell of a lot in hush money.

He had performed other duties for Maggie when Sean was out of the house. He had also offered to take care of Vic Foster for her. Foster was one of Richie's teachers. After a school assembly about "children's rights" and other such garbage, the stupid boy had shown Foster his latest collection of bruises. The dirty old bastard confronted her during a parent-teacher conference then blackmailed her into having sex with him in exchange for his silence. She would have had Caz settle accounts with Foster if the beefy history teacher hadn't been so good in bed. And Richie had never discussed family business outside the house again.

Finally, Caz slithered in. He grinned his little shark grin and tossed his briefcase onto the table.

"Got yourself quite a mess here, Maggie."

"I didn't do anything. Richie's just exaggerating again, looking for attention."

Caz snorted. "Yeah, that'll win the jury over. Blame a kid for getting his guts stomped in."

Maggie replied sharply, "That was NOT me! Sean was the one who stepped on Richie."

"That's right. You just bashed him in the head with a trophy. Luckily for you, Sean's boot print on Richie's back is a huge piece of evidence that will work to our advantage." Caz sat opposite Maggie and opened his briefcase. He leafed through a sheaf of papers and finally found what he was looking for.

"Sean says that Richie isn't his son. So who is the sucker, er, father?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It sure as hell matters to somebody," said Caz. "I've got a copy of an urgent request here to run Richie's DNA against a sample. An unidentified sample."

Maggie looked at him in surprise. She snatched the papers from his hand and scanned the information.

"Respond directly to Wayne Industries," she murmured. "No, it's not possible. He couldn't know about Richie."

"Who?"

Maggie debated what to tell Caz and finally decided on the truth. "Bruce Wayne." She went on to tell him of her encounter with the legendary businessman.

"Bruce Wayne? Multi-billionaire Bruce Wayne is Richie's daddy?" Caz actually cackled with glee and rubbed his hands together. "Maggie, you are such a slut. God bless your evil little heart because this could be big.

"I'll do some snooping and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, let's get back to business. You're being charged with attempted murder, child abuse, and child neglect. Sean's being charged with the same, but his lawyer got him some concessions if he testifies against you. We can use that against him. It's Richie's testimony that will make or break this case."

Caz tossed the file aside, folded his hands, and frowned at Maggie. "The way I see it, right now we've got two options. One, we see to it that the jury doesn't believe him We get him confused on the stand. Or two, we can make it seem that Richie is so terrified of his father that he would lie about his own mother on the witness stand."

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at Caz. "You're forgetting option number three."

"What's that?"

"Richie doesn't testify at all."


End file.
